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The recent online exposure of a teenager from Nanjing who defaced a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple has provoked nationwide introspection on such poor behaviour abroad, which many said had damaged the image of mainland tourists.

The global factory farming industry means that millions of animals are raised for food in what can only be described as inhumane conditions. Similarly, the fur industry has a brutal track record and it prefers to keep consumers uninformed about how that divinely soft pelt on a designer coat, or the fluffy fur trim on a new jacket, was manufactured.

After studying how the topic has been discussed over the last 20 plus years, I realise that, like what the experts say about grief over a lost loved one, there are five stages Hongkongers have experienced in their thinking on universal suffrage, although some have occurred simultaneously and not necessarily always in the following order.

Global tourism is being driven by mainland visitors, their numbers surging annually by double-digit percentages. Chinese are expected to become the biggest outbound market this year, overtaking Americans and Germans with 95 million trips and US$110 billion in spending. But while they are being welcomed with open arms by governments, they are not always as warmly greeted by locals. As in Hong Kong, manners and habits are criticised most.

A minibus driver was accused of risking lives by playing the video game Candy Crush Saga on his phone in a traffic jam. After a passenger posted a video showing the driver's antics on the internet, one viewer warned against Candy Crush becoming "Car Crush".

So, some of us take exception to mainland visitors and their habits. A photo doing the rounds last week of a mainland child defecating on the floor of Kaohsiung airport in Taiwan said it all for those who think in terms of "them" and "us". It fitted perfectly the engrained image that those from north of the border don't know much about hygiene and cleanliness.

If a boy and a girl are less than 50cm apart, it's socially unacceptable. So says 'the code' at a middle school in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

The code of behaviour, being taught at Yandaojie Middle School, is part of new push for etiquette education under a new national guideline for primary and middle school students made public over the weekend.